


There is Old Saying (To Live with Wolves)

by Cousin Shelley (CousinShelley)



Category: Eastern Promises (2007)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Homophobic Language, M/M, Original Character Death(s), Yuletide Assignment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-04 14:40:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1082208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CousinShelley/pseuds/Cousin%20Shelley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’d failed before he started, if staying pure and clean had really been the goal.</p><p>It never had been, though. He knew it then as he knew it now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There is Old Saying (To Live with Wolves)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Galadriel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galadriel/gifts).



> Happy Holidays!
> 
> (When the stories went live, this had a different title and Russian proverbs titling each section. I worried about the Cyrillic font not showing properly in different readers and phone apps. I removed them, and a title change seemed for the best because of it. I've been urged to put them back, so if there appears to be problems with the section headers not showing correctly, dont worry. They're not vital to the understanding of the story.)

**Куда́ ни кинь, всю́ду клин**

**Damned if You Do, Damned if You Don't**

Nikolai found himself thinking about his old life too much lately when left to his own devices. When all the necessary tasks and arrangements were handled, when Semyon’s attorney had been appeased into keeping the old man believing that things were running by his hand, when Kirill was in a good mood and running errands or doing anything that didn’t involve murder or drinking, Nikolai thought back.

It started with him trying to remember his mother’s face. The lines were blurry, the colors dull. And he could only clearly picture one part of her face at a time. He remembered her slightly upturned nose, her thin but shapely upper lip, her eyebrow, cocked in amusement at something Nikolai had done. He could see these little things so clearly, but when he tried to put them together the image blurred.

He remembered one day when his mother had a guest, and she’d wanted Nikolai to look his most presentable. She’d been so proud when she dressed her little man in his new dress clothes. He’d promised to keep them clean, so until the man arrived, Nikolai had mostly stood in one spot, waiting, afraid to smudge dirt or dust on himself or wrinkle the fabric.

This was a special guest, she’d told him. A man who could help them have a better life, if only he liked them enough. So Nikolai had stood, his feet pinched in the hard, shiny shoes, and wanted more than anything to be likable.

The man hadn’t helped them. The one after him hadn’t, either. There had been many men, and none of them provided the better life his mother had so desperately sought out for them.

One had been American, from Alabama. He talked about God a lot, which didn’t interest Nikolai much, but he could have listened to the man say anything. His accent made the words sound like music sometimes. Southern American accents sounded differently to him once he’d grown, but before that man had made his mother cry, Nikolai would have sworn by anything he said.

“Doesn’t matter how pure your heart is, the world’s going to tempt you into making mistakes. It’s like living every day in lily-white clothes,” he’d said more than once. “Every day is like a tunnel underground. It doesn’t matter how careful you walk through it. By the time you reach the end, you’re gonna have some dirt on ya. That’s why you have to wash your sin off every day and start fresh.”

He’d been talking about how hard it was to be a good Christian, like he was, in a heathen society. Nikolai hadn’t known what heathen meant, but he’d liked the sound of the word. And he’d thought the man was talking about literal washing, so when Nikolai bathed for the next several days, he’d taken special care behind his ears and between his toes. It wasn’t until a few years later he understood what a metaphor was. Or why his mother’s face was sometimes bruised, and why men never stayed around long enough for Nikolai to get to know them.

As he waited for Kirill to return from whatever errand he was running, Nikolai found himself thinking about the metaphor the Southern man liked so well, and how it had stuck with him all these years. He’d begun to truly understand it when he’d started to work his way into Semyon’s organization. As metaphors went, it had been perfect.

He’d imagined himself in a pristine, white suit, walking into the mouth of a tunnel that looked and felt as black as a coal mine, wrapping his arms around himself, trying to keep clean. He’d wondered if he could do it, keep that suit clean, before realizing it was impossible. He'd also thought about another saying the man had been fond of: To live with wolves, you have to howl like one.

Even in the beginning, before he’d taken the first step into the dark, he was already smudged with ink and scars beneath the white of his suit. He’d failed before he started, if staying pure and clean had really been the goal.

It never had been, though. He knew it then as he knew it now.

**Нет ды́ма без огня́**

**There is No Smoke Without Fire**

Nikolai sat calmly at the table in the empty restaurant. Kirill sat across from Nikolai, tapping the fingers of one hand on the polished wood, shaking his head.

“I don’t know, all right? They try to mess with my head, your head, with these fucking rumors.” He combed his fingers through his hair, pushing it back from his forehead, tipping his head back and shaking it. Kirill took a deep breath, closed his eyes and exhaled. “You tell me who said it, and I’ll fucking kill him.”

“If only one said it, there would not be problem.”

Kirill’s eyes snapped open. “This is . . . a conspiracy to take us down. We should stop the fucking rumors where they start, right now. Get them all.”

“Is not conspiracy.” Nikolai took a long drink from the bottle in front of him, ignoring the horrified look on Kirill’s face. “I would know, if they planned to take us down.” Nikolai spread his palms on the table. “There is old saying, Kirill--net dyma bez ognya. There is no smoke without fire. Is good saying. So, tell me, why do they say such things about you?”

Kirill jumped up from the chair, arms held wide, head shaking. “How the _fuck_ do I know?” His voice shook. Nikolai wondered if there would be tears. Maybe there needed to be.

“Wait, wait, wait. _Oh_.” Kirill laughed and pointed at Nikolai. “No . . . are you turning against _me_ now?”

Nikolai jumped up, as angrily as Kirill had. Kirill took a few steps backward, his eyes wide. Nikolai rarely let his emotions show, at least not his anger, so he was as shocked as Kirill. “Say that to me again, Kirill. Ask if I turn against you.”

They stared at each other for a long moment, neither moving, their harsh breathing the only sound in the dining room. Nikolai held his breath when Kirill’s shoulders slumped. Kirill walked around the table to pull him into a tight hug.

“Forgive me, Nikolai. I’m a fool sometimes, my temper . . . of course you would never--”

“No, I would never.” He clapped Kirill’s shoulders when they separated. “You trust me.”

It wasn’t a question, but it required an answer. Kirill nodded, laughing nervously. “You know I do, I just forget, my mouth, I don’t think sometimes. Nikolai, I trust you.”

Nikolai didn’t let go of his shoulders. Kirill gripped his forearms, too tightly.

“Da, da, Kirill. I know. That’s good, you trust me.” Nikolai schooled his expression into something neutral. Not a smile that Kirill could take for contempt. Not a piercing gaze like Semyon had leveled at him so many times, expecting disappointment. A neutral expression. Waiting to hear something already known, without surprise or judgement. “Now tell me rumor is true.”

“Nikolai.” Kirill’s grip loosened, but Nikolai didn’t let go.

“No, Kirill. Tell me why little birds come to me and say that you’re queer.”

Kirill flinched and opened his mouth to speak. Nikolai pushed him against the table, forcing him to lean back. “Tell only the truth, Kirill. Say it. Tell me rumor is true.”

Kirill’s stunned expression broke whatever fragile pieces were left of Nikolai’s heart, because Kirill wasn’t seeing him. He was seeing his father, and imagining what would happen if he dared admit to something Semyon and men like him considered a perversion. Nikolai knew Semyon had always suspected that the rumors were true, but couldn’t face that any more than Kirill could face his own nature.

Nikolai knew all about avoiding your nature, pretending to be something else. And while Nikolai had long ago accepted the part of himself he tried to get Kirill to admit now, he’d spent far too much time avoiding the part of himself that wanted Kirill’s admission. He’d been unable to face why it was important to him.

He grew weary of pretending so many things, of trying to stay clean and white while writhing on the ground. This one thing could be real, to anchor him, to make it easier to manage the rest. This is what Nikolai told himself as he watched Kirill start to crumble.

“Why?” Kirill nearly wailed. “What are you gonna do? Throw me away? Hmm?”

Nikolai shoved him, still holding onto his shoulders, making the table creak beneath them. “We just had this conversation, Kirill. Stop. If you trust anything in me . . . tell me.”

Nikolai’s legs were on the outside of Kirill’s, so that he straddled his hips with Kirill nearly fully prone on the table from the waist up. He grabbed the front of Kirill’s shirt to hold him up. Kirill’s hands gripped his wrists, his eyes wide and desperate. “I _can’t_.”

“Semyon, he would beat you if you’d given him _hint_ of this. Da, Kirill?”

“You know he would. He would--”

“You are afraid of him, your father.”

Kirill nodded. “So should you be, Nikolai.”

“I do not fear a powerless man behind bars. He sends notes, his attorney comes with papers and instructions. I let him think he runs business. But who runs business, Kirill?”

“You.”

“And _you_. We do, together. Semyon will be in his cell until he leaves it in coffin. You fear a ghost, Kirill. And I am not him.” He shook Kirill, less gently than he’d intended. “You. Are. Queer. Da?”

Nikolai was careful to say _queer_ the same way he would say _smart_ or _clever_ or _loyal_. Not with disgust and a sneer, like Kirill’s father.

“You _are_.”

Kirill nodded, and the fear still there was almost too much for Nikolai.

“Then say it.”

Kirill took a deep breath and lurched forward and up, shoving against Nikolai and bringing them both upright. “I am _queer_. Fuck! Why you do this, Nikolai? Jesus Christ.” He ground his palms against his closed eyes. “Fucking _queer_!”

Nikolai grabbed Kirill’s chin and jerked his face up so Kirill would look at him. “Because I want no more rumors flying back to me.” He let his body lean the rest of the way forward to close the space between them. “I want to hear of no more men, Kirill. Do I make myself clear?”

He pulled Kirill forward with the fingers under his chin until their lips touched. Kirill flinched backwards, but Nikolai didn’t move his fingers, didn’t change his expression.

When Kirill’s mouth slammed onto his, a clutching hand on the back of his neck, Nikolai sighed into the kiss, relieved. Kirill’s kiss was rough, as rough as he’d expected, and Nikolai did not pretend to mind. The way Kirill pressed against him now was a promise of no more men to start rumors or tell stories. Just one man. That was the agreement they made with their lips and teeth and tongues.

**С волка́ми жить, по-во́лчьи выть**

**To Live with Wolves, You Have to Howl Like a Wolf**

Nikolai didn’t know what Kirill had called him here to do. He wouldn’t speak about it on the phone, only to say that it couldn’t wait. Nikolai’s driver, a man named Yuri whom he did not like or trust, waited in the car. Nikolai’s stomach rolled as he walked among the crumbled concrete, the trash blown against walls and piles of debris left from the homeless making their beds here overnight. An abandoned building to his left made him uneasy, with dark windows that could be full of eyes he couldn’t see. The sun had only begun to set, and both the lit places and the shadows seemed harsh and cold.

“Nikolai.” Kirill’s voice called softly from inside the doorway of one of the small, empty warehouses on this block. Then his face appeared. He jerked his head toward the inside of the warehouse. “We have a problem.”

He hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath until he heard Kirill’s voice, and he breathed. This old industrial park with its abandoned buildings and hidey-holes was the type of place that people like Semyon brought their problems to be eliminated. For a few seconds, he’d imagined someone forcing Kirill to call and lure him here, to eliminate _him_.

Kirill’s hand pressed against his upper back when he stepped inside the warehouse and urged him forward. “This man, Nikolai, he has much to say. About you.”

Only then did Nikolai realize Kirill’s other hand held a gun, complete with a silencer. He intended to use it. Kirill gestured with it to indicate a man sitting on the ground, his head in his hands. Light streamed in through the broken windows, making the lines of blood running from the man’s hairline down to his chin easy enough to see.

“He’s done a lot of talking. Told me all kinds of _fantastic_ stories about you.” Kirill’s voice dripped with sarcasm and something else.

Nikolai fought to look at Kirill the same way he always did. “About me?”

“He said you were out for my father.” Kirill’s tone set Nikolai on edge, mostly because he didn’t recognize it. “Not for money or power, though. For very different reasons.”

Kirill raked his fingers through his hair, still shaking the gun in the direction of the injured man. “He told me all about how you don’t belong in this organization, in this _family_. Told me that’s because, you, my dear Nikolai . . . you’re an agent. You’re with the _cops_.” He shouted the last word and spit on the ground.

Nikolai’s heartbeat, he could have sworn, paused before jumping into overdrive. He wondered if Kirill would shoot him outright or torture him for information. No, Kirill might strike him in anger, but that would be all. It chilled him that he was comforted by the thought that Kirill would probably kill him quickly, if it came to that.

Nikolai fought to keep his expression from changing. He would not try to reason, and he would not beg. He simply would be the same man Kirill knew, and Kirill would accept the truth or not.

Kirill leaned close and looked into his eyes, before touching his forehead to Nikolai’s. “He talked for long time. But I thought you would want to ask him many questions, hm? Before I kill him.”

Nikolai tried to breathe evenly to not give himself away. Relief made his knees feel soft, relief that Kirill did not think he’d betrayed him. That relief was stronger than the relief that he would live. He thought of white suits, of a dark tunnel and the warmth of sunlight on his face as he stepped out of it.

“Kirill, I swear to you, _please_ ,” the man said. “He is traitor. Why do you think your father’s in prison?” The man shook and rubbed his arms as if he were cold. Shock, Nikolai guessed. He realized who the man was then. Another son from another family like Semyon’s: Dmitri Kolnykov. Dmitri had kept his nose relatively clean, at least of anything Scotland Yard would have been interested in.

“Who tells you I am traitor?” Nikolai wondered if Dmitri had taken it upon himself to win Kirill’s favor by twisting what had happened with Semyon into a police conspiracy, not knowing it actually had been. Maybe he planned to turn Kirill against him so that Kirill would be alone to run the business and need help from people like the Kolnykovs. If so, his choice of sabotage was uncomfortably close to the truth.

Or Nikolai was in denial, and his cover wasn’t as airtight as he’d thought.

“Fucking cop,” Dmitri said. Then he shook his hands at Kirill. “How can you not see?”

Nikolai took a few steps toward Dmitri, who shrank back against the wall. Kirill moved with him. He laughed. “ _I_ see what’s in front of me.”

Nikolai smiled. “Kirill, can’t you see? I am big cop. Big agent,” he said calmly, nodding his head. “I am traitor who put your father in prison.” He could hear as clear as yesterday the Southern American and one of his favorite old sayings, telling his mother that only children, drunks and madmen tell the truth. _Perhaps I am madman. Why not?_ “Of course I am cop, Kirill. What else would I be?” His smile broadened, and he felt strangely light.

Kirill laughed and pointed his gun at Dmitri. “No other questions for our little birdie?”

If someone were actually spreading the word that Nikolai was an agent, whether they knew it to be true or not, it would come up again. He would find the source, if so. This was just a man who made a bad choice without proof. An ambitious choice. He took a risk and lost.

“Nikolai? No questions?”

“Nyet.”

Kirill raised the gun and aimed. Nikolai put his hand on the barrel and pushed it down.

Nikolai had disposed of so many bodies. Sent so many messages. Been party to so many things he had no choice but to be party to, but he had never killed except in self-defense.

Kirill, on the other hand, had always done what his father expected of him, and had done things to protect himself, as well. His hands were dirty--dirtier than Nikolai’s would ever be. And he was ready to kill for Nikolai now, ready to dirty his hands even more. He trusted Nikolai so implicitly, he’d never even considered that Dmitri might have been telling the truth.

Nikolai had needed that trust in the beginning to do his job. Then he’d craved it. Now he wanted to keep it.

“What?” Kirill waved his other hand in the Dmitri’s direction. “You heard what he said about you.”

And he wanted to keep Kirill from getting his hands even dirtier. He took the gun, with Kirill gaping at him in disbelief.

“Da, da, Kirill. I heard what he said.” Nikolai aimed at Dmitri’s forehead and pulled the trigger quickly enough that Dmitri had no time to even show surprise.

Before, Nikolai might have imagined himself at the end of a tunnel he’d been forced to crawl through, his white suit stained with filth and blood, his fingers stretching toward the bright exit. Now, he realized, perhaps he’d been too long in the dark, because giving up the sun didn’t feel like such a sacrifice.

**В гостя́х хорошо́, а до́ма лу́чше**

**There's No Place Like Home**

“Coffee. Black.” Nikolai shifted in the uncomfortable plastic booth and put his newspaper on the table in front of him. He sighed heavily at the smell of grease and burnt coffee in the small restaurant, and longed to be home. When had he started thinking of Semyon’s restaurant as home? Perhaps it was a question he shouldn’t ask himself.

There were so many such questions.

The Inspector apparently had a lot of questions, too. He’d sent an agent to make contact with Nikolai after Dmitri’s body was discovered. The Inspector had known it was an execution, maybe even a paid hit, and had been perplexed that there was no sign from Nikolai on the body or otherwise to let him know where the dead man fit into things, and what had happened.

A man with dark, curly hair and striking blue eyes had bumped into Nikolai on the street and dropped a note into his pocket while he patted him and apologized. Nikolai wrote his own note now and placed it in the folded newspaper that lay in front of him. He drank a few sips of the bitter coffee, looked at his watch, then shook his head and rose, as if he’d only just realized he needed to be somewhere right away.

On his way out of the diner, as he walked toward the waiting car--complete with a new driver that he disliked less than Yuri--he saw the same dark-haired, blue-eyed man approaching. The Inspector’s voice rang inside his head that it was time to pull out, he’d done enough, he’d sacrificed enough and was getting too deep--the same things he said every time they made contact.

Nikolai knew he was right. And he knew all he had to do was make a gesture at this blue-eyed man, and they’d turn and walk away together. None of the families would see Nikolai again. He could go to some other life.

A woman in passed Nikolai going the same direction, rushing in her too-high heels, white coat billowing behind her. Nikolai thought of the man his mother had wanted to save them, and pictured himself all in white, looking in the mirror, admiring how clean and crisp it looked. He could have that, in a new life. A fresh start, just like the man had said. He could try.

The blue-eyed man was headed for the diner and the booth he’d just left. Nikolai didn’t even meet his eyes as they passed. He would find Nikolai’s paper and his note, a reply to the Inspector’s question of whether Dmitri Kolnykov’s death had anything to do with the activities of the organization.

He’d written his answer on the back of his coffee receipt. _No_.

Nikolai didn’t want a flawless white suit, not when his vision of himself in the mirror had shown nothing reflected behind him. It was false, and impossible. He wore a clean suit, but he was alone, in a void. He’d tried to picture something back there--paintings on a wall, dark-panelled booths and polished wood tables, Kirill’s smirk. He saw only himself and the mirror. If that was the other life he could choose, he didn’t want it. He wondered if the tunnel he was in, the tunnel he was _choosing_ , had an exit where he would one day be able to drag Kirill into the light, or if it only went deeper underground with no way back out at all.

He got into the car, watched the door of the diner for only a few seconds, and told the driver to take him home.

 


End file.
